Wrong
by Princess Pinky
Summary: Late into her pregnancy, Aurora reflects on why she's been so miserable ever since Mulan left to join the Merry Men.


**A/N:** Because my feels are killing me and I needed something to take my mind off the heteronormative Phulan illogic, I wrote this. It's a ficlet though, sorry it's not longer.

_**Wrong**_

Her belly grew like the full moon, waxing a little more every month. Each morning Aurora would rise with the hour for which she had been named and examine herself in the mirror while her fiancé lay sleeping in their cold bed. At three months she had looked in the mirror and saw light. Back then, the flowers were in bloom and Mulan had yet to join the Merry Men. Now, at seven months, the flowers had withered into the hardened soil and she hadn't received so much as a letter from her warrior.

Aurora wrapped an arm under her belly and caressed the taut skin. She swore that sometimes she could hear the tiny heart beating inside; sometimes she could feel it. "Mulan," she whispered. An ovular face, arched eyes, and raven hair filled her mind's eye. She already told Phillip that if their child was a girl, she wanted to name her Mulan, and he agreed before the sentence had fallen completely from her lips.

She shrugged on her shawl and ambled into the morning air, barefoot. The castle stones felt of ice beneath the soles of her feet, as though they were wraiths and her heat the souls they desired. But Aurora barely noticed the pain until she reached the empty flower beds. The watering can sat on the frame of the flower bed. She lifted it and mimed watering the plants as she remembered doing on that spring morning; she closed her eyes, trying to recall their smell.

When she opened them again, all she could see was the rusted ring that the can had been hiding on the stone. With a sob, she flung the can at the wall and it yelped metallically before falling and rolling to her numb toes, dented. Aurora kicked it away and sank to her feet against the flower bed wall with her knees pulled up as far as her swollen stomach would allow. Sure she'd lost people before—best friends, her parents, the entirety of her kingdom—but not like this…and Mulan wasn't even gone, not really, not properly. She hadn't even felt this way when she'd lost Phillip.

Phillip.

Like her father to her mother before her, Phillip was her betrothed. Betrothal was superficial to some, but a royal tradition to her kingdom. Moreover, Phillip _loved _her. He'd awoken her from the sleeping curse with True Love's Kiss. Aurora wiped her slippery lashes with the edge of her shawl. "So why am I in such a state of misery?" She looked to the dull sunrise.

True Love couldn't lie.

Could it?

Somewhere deep inside, Aurora felt the baby move. She touched her belly and thought of Snow and Emma, of Emma and Henry, of…_Henry_. She blinked, picturing as clearly as she could the boy from the dream world. He had been saved by the sleeping curse with True Love's Kiss as well, but by his mother.

In the silence, she heard a heartbeat. Not the baby's, _hers_. Aurora touched her hand to her chest. "It's so obvious: a mother's love," she whispered. "There's more than one kind of True Love." Mulan's face was suddenly imprinted upon her inner eyelid, for each time she blinked, Mulan was all she saw. "It's not Singular Love or Forever Love—" She stopped herself then, afraid of where that reasoning might go. She looked at her stomach and tentatively asked: "If people can fall in love, then it stands to reason they can fall out of it too, can't they." She was surprised to find that it wasn't a question.

Beneath her fingertips she felt her heart speed up just a little. "I love Phillip." Aurora's teeth chattered. "I lov_ed_ Phillip." She felt two tears join at the point of her chin and plash onto the hand that cupped her chest. "Maybe that's why I miss her so much? Maybe I miss her because I don't – because I've fallen out of…" She pictured Phillip's face reflected back at her, always the same shining look as he'd lean his head over her shoulder to kiss her good morning when he'd find her in front of the mirror. But in each image her face only dimmed like the sun sinking behind the mountains.

And just like that, Mulan was back, her smile filling Aurora's entire frame of mind. Big and bright, Mulan was ready to tell her glorious news; the news that she was leaving them. The more Aurora thought about it, the less sense it made, and the angrier she became. _Them_, not just her, even though Mulan had said that summoning Phillip—who she'd known longer, who she'd battled with and sworn her allegiance too—wasn't of concern.

"_You love him."_

"_What?"_

"_Phillip. You love him too."_

"_I owe him much. We fought many battles together, side by side. Nothing more!"_

"_Deny it all you want. I know love when I see it."_

"_You're _wrong_."_

Phillip's face.

Mulan's face.

Aurora's chest burned. "I see it now."


End file.
